Antonio E. Nardi, Richard Balon, Guy Chouinard, Fiammetta Cosci, Steven Dubovsky, Giovanni A. Fava, Rafael C. Freire, David J. Greenblatt, John H. Krystal, Karl Rickels, Thomas Roth, Carl Salzman, Richard I. Shader, Edward K. Silberman, Nicoletta Sonino, Vladan Starcevic and Steven J. Weintraub: The value of long-term clinical experience with benzodiazepines. International Task Force on Benzodiazepines
Bruno Müller-Oerlinghauses’s comments

            An expert’s review on the pros and cons of benzodiazepines  (BDZ) is long overdue. I’m delighted to see the names of so many well-known experts in this field on the tableau of potential authors for the upcoming task force.

            As in many areas of clinical/practical psychopharmacology  crude biases, prejudice  and half-digested information  have taken the lead in public  and also medical  opinions on the merits and disadvantages  of BDZ and Z-substances which still present one of the oldest and  most widely prescribed class of psychotropic compounds  all over the world. E.g.: If prescribed and applied in a rational way they still present the most powerful and useful hypnotics with relatively low toxicity.    Thus, a number of qualified overviews on various aspects of these valuable compounds would be  extremely helpful to get  the medico-internal and public discussion  traced back on an acceptable  scientific  level.

February 21, 2019